HomeNewsHigh school student violates dress code, ends up in jail. Here’s how it escalated.

High school student violates dress code, ends up in jail. Here’s how it escalated.

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A Kentucky high school student wore a t-shirt to protest her school’s dress code, and by the end of the day she had been arrested, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Isabella Messer of Hopkinsville High School ended up kicking a school resource officer after an encounter with the school principal went south.

“She shouldn’t have been in any kind of trouble. Now it turned out to be where she’s in McCracken [Regional Juvenile Detention Center] because the assistant principal did not like what her shirt had read,” her mother, Theresa Rucks, told the Herald Leader. “They got her with resisting arrest for a shirt that was peaceful protesting,” she said.

What happened?

Messer had previously been cited for violating her school’s dress code policy about showing shoulders. The dress code had reportedly changed for the 2018-19 school year.

In protest of the dress code, Rucks had a t-shirt made for her daughter that read: “Do my shoulders turn you on?” on the front and “If so, return to the 1920s” on the back. The shirt was reportedly oversized in fit so as to cover Messer even more than necessary.

The principal didn’t like the stunt, and confronted Messer in the hallway when she wore the shirt last Thursday. The police report states that Messer became “uncooperative” and “loud” when approached about her shirt. She was then handcuffed by a school resource officer.

An assistant principal noticed that Messer was holding her cellphone behind her back. The school resource officer tried to take it from her, and according to the police report, she kicked him in the shin.

Her mother has a different take on what happened, however. Rucks said the kick was inadvertent, and that she was merely lifting her leg reflexively to block the officer because of her Taekwondo training.

Messer was charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and third-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, and spent Thursday through the following Tuesday in the juvenile detention center before being released on house arrest.

Taking legal action?

Rucks said she is considering suing the school, and has already enrolled her daughter in an alternative school after the incident.

“I feel like the school has gone overboard,” Rucks said. “She’s such a good kid.”

High school student violates dress code, ends up in jail. Here’s how it escalated.
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September 06, 2018
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